


the liberty of the angels

by Kate_Wisdom



Series: Angels Alone [2]
Category: Enemy at the Door (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing, Difficulties in bed, Enemy to Caretaker, M/M, Missing Scene, Nazi Germany, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, World War II, shouting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26892013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Wisdom/pseuds/Kate_Wisdom
Summary: Philip may be back from the wars, but how can he be sure he's truly free?
Relationships: Olive Martel & Dieter Richter, Olive Martel & John Forbes, Philip Martel/Dieter Richter, Philip Martel/Olive Martel
Series: Angels Alone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981576
Kudos: 4
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. a prison not of walls

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergence post S2E3's _Angels that Soar Above_.
> 
> From [To Althea, from Prison](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44657/to-althea-from-prison):
> 
> _..."Stone Walls do not a Prison make,_  
>  _Nor Iron bars a Cage;_  
>  _Minds innocent and quiet take_  
>  _That for an Hermitage._  
>  _If I have freedom in my Love,_  
>  _And in my soul am free,_  
>  _Angels alone that soar above,_  
>  _Enjoy such Liberty."_
> 
> \- - Richard Lovelace
> 
> Content warnings for references to offscreen noncon and torture, onscreen consequences thereof, PTSD, unreliable narrators, Nazis. Please heed separate warnings on each chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip thinks he just needs to go home. Richter knows better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene from S2E3's _Angels that Soar Above_. Posted as part of Whumptober, for Day 7: "Enemy to Caretaker."
> 
> Content warnings for references to offscreen prison noncon, beatings, torture and sexual torture, onscreen consequences thereof, Nazis.

The narrow corridor that led to the Kommandant’s office was familiar territory. Philip had traversed it often enough in his youth as a student of Elizabeth College, in the days before its walls had been painted this particular shade of teal and festooned with military bulletins in German. 

He had of course had the opportunity to re-tread those steps more recently during the first year of the German occupation. 

On those occasions, he had always been very conscious of the fact he had come on behalf of the Controlling Committee, to convey its requests to the occupying power. He might have grown familiar with those missions and that duty, and the Kommandant himself, but he could never quite forget the solemn authority in which he had been clothed. 

Philip stood in that corridor now, wearing the same suit he’d put on the day he’d left Saint Peter Port for Saint-Malo, acutely conscious he was clothed in no one’s authority but his own. 

He was also very conscious of the smell of his unwashed skin. No laundry facilities had been extended at Cherche-Midi, and he’d been forced to wash his shirt and underclothes and socks in the sink in his cell with the dirty prison water. They’d taken away his towel and his braces when he’d stepped into the guard room; no showers or soap had been offered, either, and for six months he had made do with his handkerchief and the electric razor they’d allowed him to keep. He had tried to keep up with hygiene standards as best he could and to adhere to a sort of schedule to spin out his day - - in the mornings, before he made his bed, he would undress and shave and wash the top half of his body; in the afternoon, he would undress and wash the bottom half. 

He knew these were at best half measures; he knew that, after six months, despite his best efforts, everything about him smelled of that place.

He did not know why he’d been brought here, to the Kommandantur. The cramped, stifling conditions on the cattle truck from Paris had been almost as grim as the freezing cold of Cherche Midi, made worse by the overwhelming sense of dislocation -- as if the months he had spent in that hell-hole was the real world, and this escape from it the temporary illusion. Being aware of the technical diagnosis did not make the disorder any easier to deal with, but at least he could tell his state of mind had improved when he got off the boat from Saint-Malo and stepped into the thin April sunlight as a free man. Guernsey’s shores had felt reassuringly familiar under the soles of his filthy shoes; he’d taken a steadying breath, and in that moment, all he wanted to do was go home.

He’d tried not to think of his quiet house while in Cherche-Midi, of Olive and Clare, his darlings, so far away. He could not have lasted the six months in solitary confinement if he’d had. In Cherche-Midi no one touched another person save to hurt them in little and large ways; thinking about being touched, about being comforted, about a hand outstretched to soothe or provide support, would have just made matters so much worse. 

In his rational mind, Philip knew why such thoughts felt so strange now that he could finally afford to dwell upon them. But although he had returned sufficiently to himself to feel once again that most natural longing for the comforts of home, he was still sufficiently a prisoner of his own mind, and in occupied territory, to answer the summons of the Kommandant of the occupying forces and permit himself to be conveyed to this place of Richter’s power. 

Richter kept him waiting in the corridor for some minutes. No doubt he was receiving a full debrief on Philip’s physical and mental state from Oberleutnant Kluge, whom he’d sent to collect Philip from the harbour. 

Could the Oberleutnant tell how badly Philip had been broken? Philip had no idea. For all he knew, he now carried the terrible violations he had experienced and the even more terrible indignities he had witnessed about with him as clearly as his stench.

The guards hadn’t done him permanent damage, in the end, as he’d known they wouldn’t. It had almost been worse.

Finally, the door opened and Kluge ushered him in to face the Kommandant.

Richter looked much the same as he had six months ago, when he had passed judgment on Philip and his dear ones and sent him to Paris’ most notorious prison. His narrow face had not lost that sombre, ascetic cast that belonged on a plaster saint and seemed so strangely out of place on an officer of the Wehrmacht. Then again, Philip remembered it being said that the Devil had been created by God to be the most beautiful of all His angels.

“Good morning, Doctor. Please, won’t you sit down?”

Richter was smiling the same urbane smile that had almost charmed the Controlling Committee, and - - he had to admit it - - had charmed Philip himself. It was almost tempting to allow himself to be won over yet again. 

Wearily, Philip prepared himself for the onslaught. He refused the offer of coffee, even though he had dreamed of its taste for six months. 

When Richter hastened around the desk to gallantly hold the chair for him, Philip steeled himself not to flinch back. There was no reason to fear the Kommandant. Even though he’d been promoted to the rank of Colonel in the intervening time, this was the same man who, though their countries were at war, had always treated Philip and the other islanders with old-school courtesy; he would not physically harm Philip. 

Then again, Richter had soldiers for that. 

He settled uncomfortably into Richter’s chair, stiff and aching in ways he didn’t want to think about.

“Why on earth would you think I should want to see you before I went home?” 

If Richter was stung by Philip’s harshness, his avuncular manner showed no sign of it. “Your wife does not know you are coming,” he murmured, his brow furrowing in concern. “You have been away for a hundred and seventy-nine days. I thought that a bath might not be unwelcome.”

Philip felt himself stiffen in Richter’s chair, clutching his suitcase to his chest, the room reeling around him. He heard himself shouting, the words bursting from him. A bath? It was laughable that the Major - - no, the Colonel, now - - could even _think_ that everything he had seen and heard and felt in that place could be as simply remedied as the bacteria on his clothes and body by soapy water. Or possibly by bath salts, if such a thing could even be found any more in the privations of wartime Guernsey!

But was Richter really suggesting this? Or was the man really offering him the chance to spare Olive the distress of smelling months of prison grime, of seeing how broken Philip truly was?

Philip’s outburst had made his lungs burn. He coughed the painful cough he had developed in the Parisian cold. Richter could not immediately meet his eyes; instead, he busied himself with the coffee things and enquired after Philip’s and Peter’s health as if they had spent the last six months living a stone’s throw from Saint Peter Port.

Again, the world seemed to tilt on its side. How could it be that Richter did not know what conditions were truly like in places like Cherche-Midi? The lack of food, the terrible cold - - so cold that Philip had spent hundreds of hours standing on his stool, itself placed on the table, his head touching the ceiling, so as to receive the benefit of the rather warmer air in the upper half of the cell - - air that had been warmed by the guards’ stoves in the hallway, and wafted in over the gap at the top of the door.

Not to mention the fear: that the key turning in the lock of the door did not herald the delivery of a piece of hard black bread, or the emptying of a filled sanitary bucket. But, instead, a visit to the room in the basement where questions were asked and punishments were exacted - - as it had been for the Belgian motor-bus driver stopped at a check-point with illicit cargo on board, and for Jean-Pierre in the adjacent cell, accused of holding a senior position in the French resistance, for whom the German Inspectorate had come again and again, until Philip had himself intervened.

Or a trip to the execution yard, one that had been taken by the French civil servant in the other cell adjacent to Philip’s, whose story Philip had only elicited in stages: an incautious mission to Paris, an arrest by the secret police, and the inevitable appointment with the firing squad.

Richter leaned forward at his desk. Unmistakable distress shone from his eyes as he listened to Philip’s story; for a moment, Philip thought he might reach for Philip’s hand. “But that can’t have been the case for you!” he exclaimed, when Philip had finished.

“Why not?” The vehemence made Philip’s throat ache. “Tell me why not!”

Richter seemed, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words. Finally, he said, “Because… because you’re not that kind of person, Doctor!”

The world seemed to steady for a moment. The fog parted; Philip could see clear at last. “I didn’t know. You still don’t know, do you? But I know now.”

Knew, finally, that the fair and civilised attitude of the German occupying presence on Guernsey - - and perhaps even the attitude of Richter himself - - owed itself to the fact that the English were seen as a fair and civilised race. Knew it was not the same attitude that they showed to Jews and French and Belgians and other lesser races without the law, as they had shown Josef, and Jean-Pierre, and the man from the French Deuxième Bureau.

Richter leaned back in his chair. “Doctor, where is this leading us?”

Could Richter truly be forgiven for not knowing? Living on this secluded island, it was perhaps not impossible that he did not know about the atrocities committed in the name of the Third Reich. Or, more likely, could plausibly convince himself he did not know the worst of it.

“Before the war, you were an academic. In peacetime, you lived in Cambridge! On Trumpington Street, you told my wife that.” He had, at that; the gall of the man, visiting Olive in an awkward attempt at friendship. At the time Philip had thought it almost endearing. He continued, bitterly: “Perhaps you like the English. Is that what you meant? When you said for me the fear of torture would not apply, it’s because I was the _right kind of person_?”

He swallowed. “But here’s where you were wrong, Colonel. Living here, you don’t have to get your hands dirty, you can pretend not to see. You have that luxury. Whereas in Cherche-Midi prison, the other Germans actually doing the beatings, the shootings, the torture? They know. Believe me, they know.”

Richter rose, very slowly, to his feet. “Surely they did not lay their hands on you? Were you in fact harmed in some way?”

Philip found himself getting to his feet as well. He put his suitcase down on the table. He did not want to revisit the things that had been done to him in Cherche Midi after he had intervened on Jean-Pierre’s behalf. But, although the prospect made him sick to the stomach, he did feel it was important to make Richter _see_ , at last - - to remove for him some of that hard, wilful blindness that living on this island allowed him to affect, by force if necessary.

His hands went to the knot of his soiled necktie, working it loose. “Would you like me to show you?”

Richter met his gaze squarely. His eyes were dark with some inner conflict, the muscles in his jaw clenched, as if he was having difficulty chewing over the decision. 

Finally, painfully, he said, “I think I’ve seen enough, Doctor.”

“I don’t think you have,” Philip whispered, and lowered his collar so Richter could get a good look.

Inopportunely, the door to the office banged open. The Feldkommandant burst in - - of course, this was also his office - - sounding slightly out of breath when he said, “Dr Martel, how nice to see you again!”

Philip greeted Major Freidel without turning around or taking his eyes off Richter, who was still staring at his defiantly bared throat and what could be seen there. 

Belatedly realising what he was doing, the Colonel dropped his gaze and took a step back, visibly gathering himself. He reached for the telephone on his desk.

“Let me find an orderly to show you to the ablutions room.”

Philip shook his head. He was bone-tired, his hair hadn’t been cut in six months, he’d just offered to come clean with this man, with his enemy, and that enemy had refused, despite Philip’s best efforts, to believe him. “I’d prefer to go home stinking.”

“Why? To let everyone see how you’ve been treated?”

“I’d feel less of a Judas that way.” Perhaps the islanders were right when they called him a quisling for being blind enough to place his trust in Nazis. Perhaps his own daughter was right. “Too many favours, too much civility. War is war, and we’ve forgotten we’re combatants in it, and for too long we’ve ignored the evil that you’ve done.”

Richter asked, awkwardly, cupping his hand around the telephone receiver, “And so you intend to go home like this? Carrying this smell about with you like a badge?”

In that moment, the fierce odour was indistinguishable from Philip’s rage and shame. “ _Your_ badge, you mean? It’s on your head, all of it. You won’t get your hands dirty, and you’re still refusing to see what’s in front of you. But you must know the responsibility is yours.”

Richter took in a sharp breath. He squared his shoulders, and then he replaced the receiver on the cradle. He crossed from behind his desk to face Philip, standing close enough to breathe him in. 

“Very well, Doctor. You say that I am reluctant to undertake unpleasant tasks by my own hand. Will you accept my offer of a bath if I take you to the ablutions room myself, and let you show me the harm that was done to you?”

This took the wind from Philip’s sails; he found himself at a loss for words. Behind him, he heard Freidel let out a small, surprised noise. The world had come loose of its anchor, leaving him adrift in uncharted, turbulent waters. His one point of focus was Richter’s sad gaze, somehow more unguarded and vulnerable in this moment than he’d ever seemed before. 

Philip rubbed his temples. This enemy had, unexpectedly, laid down his arms, and was extending a temporary truce. Something within him stirred treacherously in response. Would accepting truly be an act of betrayal?

“Think about your wife, how distressed she would feel if she saw you like this. Particularly now, when she needs a show of morale from you more than ever.” Richter paused, and then lowered his voice. “Trust me, you would be helping her, not betraying her. You would not be betraying anyone, let alone yourself.” 

The thought of Olive’s distress made him bow his head in despair. Fighting to hold onto his composure, Philip said the first ridiculous thing that came to mind: “Do you have bath salts?”

He was rewarded by a wry, genuine smile. “Possibly? Reinicke may have a covert stockpile of such essential items, despite our present shortages. How about it, Doctor?” 

Philip let out the breath he had been holding. Richter was standing so close he could see the pinpricks of light in his eyes, the pallor of his skin under the ginger stubble of his beard. 

“Very well, I accept.”

  
  


* * * 

  
  


The ablutions room was adjacent to the masters’ studies, on the top floor of the school’s administrative wing where the senior staff offices were located. 

Philip was only familiar with the bathrooms in the other wing, where the boys’ dormitories had been. Those dormitories had undoubtedly now been repurposed - - more functionaries’ offices, perhaps, or storage for equipment and military supplies, all painted that same shade of teal - - but the Germans had not remodelled the bathing facilities. The steel faucets and scrubbed white tile were as Philip remembered from his schoolboy days, though this tub was full sized, large enough to encompass a grown man.

Admittedly, Philip’s recollection of past boyhood bathing did not include the presence of a uniformed colonel of the Wehrmacht, polished boots clicking as he walked across the tiled floor.

An orderly had run the bath, laid out towels, a washcloth, soap and a brush and straight-razor, and then withdrawn.

As the tub filled, Richter took off his jacket and placed it on the back of the wooden chair. He folded the sleeves of his crisp white shirt up to his elbows with the quick, efficient movements of a soldier accustomed to getting dressed in the field. 

When the tub was full, he reached over to turn off the taps. Then he looked up at Philip meaningfully. 

“Will you take off your shoes, at least?”

Philip had allowed the orderly to take away his coat and suitcase, which had held his one change of clothes. Now, slowly, he took his jacket off, and then sat down, with some difficulty, on the chair to unlace his shoes.

The good British leather had held up during his incarceration; the wool of his socks less so. The stink when he uncovered his feet was pronounced. 

To his credit, though, Richter didn’t even wince. He rested on the edge of the tub, facing Philip, hands easily clasped together on his thighs, his expression carefully neutral. 

“Now, Doctor. How are we to do this?”

Philip could only take him at his word. If Richter was truly prepared to see what Philip had to show him… well. Philip would just need to be sure he could keep up his end of the bargain.

His own movements felt slow and ungainly as compared with Richter’s methodical grace. His fingers fumbled as he removed his tie, and undid the top buttons of his soiled, yellowing shirt. 

“You asked me if I had been harmed. You can see the evidence for yourself.”

Richter’s expression didn’t change. “These abrasions on your throat are not fresh,” he said slowly. “Two weeks old, perhaps three. What happened there?”

Philip swallowed, remembering the burn of the rope, the laughter of the officers as they tightened it around his neck. “An old French technique, apparently. Called _la martingale_. Originally used for beasts of burden, but French revolutionaries used it to incapacitate soldiers at the barricades. It amused the guards to repurpose it in this way.”

He demonstrated with his hands. “The rope goes around your neck, like so, and between your legs, and secures your wrists behind your back. So if you struggle, the noose tightens and you strangle. But sometimes you can’t help fighting back, you see, even though you know it’ll just make things worse.” 

He had tried not to struggle the first time, and the second. But on the third occasion, the last one, the worst, he hadn’t managed to hold still. He’d fought back, and he’d screamed until the rope had cut off his air at last. 

Richter nodded, tightly. “I do see,” he said. “I do not recall if this method of securing prisoners is permitted by our prison regulations, or the Hague Convention.”

“I don’t think it is strictly proscribed,” Philip agreed, with a mildness that surprised him. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. Let me show you.”

When Richter nodded again, Philip unbuttoned his shirt completely. He drew the yellowing material off his shoulders and cast it on the floor with his jacket and socks. Then he presented his bared body for scrutiny under the harsh white bathroom lights. 

Richter made a shocked, inarticulate sound that was, under the circumstances, rather gratifying. Philip knew he had lost a great deal of weight. Prison food had been dismal, and he had had little appetite in the last months of his incarceration, although he had forced himself to eat to keep his strength up. But of course that, too, had not been the worst of it.

“What are those… they are not bruises, are they?”

Philip ran a hand down his jutting ribcage, his fingers seeking out the thickened, hypertrophic ridges of skin. “No. Bruises heal slowly when there’s poor nutrition, but mine are gone now. These are burn scars. They take longer to fade.”

The circular marks had already diminished from their original angry, blistering red to the present dull pink. Over the next few weeks, with proper care, they might become indistinguishable to all save those who knew where to look.

Richter was looking, though, dismay evident in the lines of his face. His hands twitched in his lap as if they dearly wanted to reach out to touch the scars, to verify that they were real. 

“This is torture, plain and simple. I cannot - - Even if - - -” Richter broke off, reining himself in. “They must have had a reason. Tell me why they did this.”

Philip made himself stare into Richter’s eyes. The reflected pain helped anchor him here, in Saint Peter Port, under the bright lights of his old school, bearing witness to the one man on the island to whom he could disclose this.

“I spoke to you about Jean-Pierre. He said he’d told them everything he knew, but still the guards would come for him, week after week. They’d march him past my cell in the morning, after breakfast, and drag him back as the sun was setting. You could tell he was quite a young man, still, not so much older than Clive. In the first week of December they kicked his teeth in. The day the poor devil recovered enough for them to resume their attentions, they returned him limping and beaten, his trousers in shreds, shivering in the cold.”

Philip took a deep breath. Despite his best efforts, he was back in Cherche -Midi again, in his grim cell lit with one naked bulb, unable to ignore the suffering of his fellow prisoners. “The next week, when the guards came for him, I told them to take me instead. I told them he’d confided in me some of the Resistance’s secrets, and I would tell them what he refused to.”

Richter leaned forward. “You gave a false statement to the Unteroffizier Inspektorate? I hardly think - - -”

“Reassure yourself, Colonel. It was clear to the Unteroffiziers in very short order that I’d been bluffing. That’s when they decided they’d punish me for wasting their time.” Philip swallowed the bile that was crawling up his throat. “Fortunately the Inspectorate wasn’t as well supplied as the Wehrmacht is here. Your larger cigars would have left much deeper burns.”

Breath hissed from between Richter’s teeth. “This is outrageous,” he said, at last. “You were innocent. And even if you were not - - this is criminal, what you are telling me was done to you, the cigarettes, this _martingale_...” His eyes narrowed. “Wait. The abrasion is more recent than these. You mean to say it occurred more than once?”

There had in fact been three times, each darker than the one before. Philip wrenched himself away from the memories: the basement room, the Unteroffiziers and then later the soldiers, the beatings and the violation that was even worse. He held Richter’s gaze as if it were a lifeline.

“They were careful not to burn me again. But there were soldiers who thought I’d be good sport. And why not? I was just a prisoner. A lesser person without the law, who didn’t have any rights.”

Richter spoke very carefully, as if he knew how close Philip was to coming apart. “And you went along with this? To spare this other man?”

There were conflicting emotions in Richter’s face that Philip couldn’t read: pity, revulsion, something else. Philip had to close his eyes. “Yes. He was a human being. It doesn’t matter what he did, what your Führer says about his race, he didn’t deserve that. None of us did.”

Richter was silent for a long moment. Philip could hear the pipes creaking, the bath cooling, the sound of troops drilling outside. 

When warm fingers touched him on the arm, Philip couldn’t help himself; he jumped violently, his eyes flying open, and he found himself cringing back in his chair.

Richter had risen to his feet in consternation. “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not mean to - - - What was done to you, to this other man, it cannot be sanctioned. Even if it is not illegal under the Hague Convention, it must certainly prohibited by prison regulations. I will see to it that the perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the applicable law.”

Philip pressed himself against the back of the chair. The wood dug into his bare skin, into the small, hurt parts of him still uncovered. He could feel the shortness of breath, the return of the ambient tremors that had beset him during his internment. “No,” he heard himself say, in a voice that seemed to come from far away.

Richter resumed his seat on the edge of the tub, holding his hands out warily as if to placate a wild animal. “I don’t understand, Doctor,” he said. “Isn’t this what you wished me to do? I see it all now, and it is unacceptable. I will seek justice for you and the others, you have my word.” 

With a supreme effort, Philip struggled to his own feet. 

“You haven’t seen all of it. When you do, you will understand why I _can’t_.”

Nobody could know. It would destroy Olive, it would destroy Clare. He would never be able to look John Ambrose or John Forbes or any of his countrymen in the eye ever again. The shameful things that had been done to him, to so many of them like him, who had been dragged to the room in the basement, who had been bound, and burned, and beaten. Who had their clothes and their dignity stripped away, and their bodies given up for another’s sadistic pleasure. 

With shaking fingers, he took his trousers down, and then his underthings, and he turned around, baring himself before his enemy. 

He wasn’t sure how visible the fissures were from this angle, though he had torn quite badly the last time, enough that they still hurt when he sat down. But the rope burns on his private areas should be quite obvious. 

This time, Philip didn’t make the mistake of closing his eyes. He focused instead on the discoloured spot on the wall. 

Beyond the plaster and brick of the old school building, it was now late morning. The good people of Guernsey were going about their day, the young soldiers of the occupying force were carrying out their orders, the world continued to turn. Nothing had changed or would change under the sun.

Or at least Philip thought that at first. Then he heard an unfamiliar noise that rose as if from the depths of the heavy silence in the room. 

He turned back around. 

The Kommandant had frozen to his seat. His fist was pressed to his mouth, his eyes were filled with profound dismay, his defences entirely overwhelmed.

When he next spoke, he sounded almost helpless. 

“Good God. Doctor, believe me, I did not know... No man would deserve this. Not even those without the law.”

He wrung his hands together. Philip could see they were shaking, too, almost as badly as his own. “I will write a letter of complaint. Even if you cannot testify, I shall still write it. It shall go to the highest levels … I cannot just sit by.”

Philip said, stiffly, “Olive and Clare can't ever know.”

Richter’s jaw quivered for a moment, and then he nodded. “All right. Yes. We must speak of Clare presently, but yes, I understand. Your wife and daughter will not know.”

Philip made himself take in a few deep breaths, in an effort to get the tremors under control. He felt soiled, as if every inch of his scarred, abused flesh was covered in filth that he would never be rid of. He wanted to go home, to see Olive and Clare, and then to lie down in his comfortable bed, perhaps never to rise from it again.

But even as he entertained these considerations, Philip knew how selfish they were. He owed it to Olive to try to spare her as much of his trauma as he could. Poor old girl, none of this was her fault.

Of course, the same might be said for the Kommandant, who was even now gazing at him as if with the horror of having violated Philip himself.

Even now, he was saying, uncertainly, “I want to help, Doctor. To put this right. Let us… let us revisit this matter when you are feeling more yourself again, would that be acceptable?” 

Philip nodded. He had the sinking feeling that he might agree to almost anything that would dispel the despair from Richter’s face. “Yes, all right.”

Richter exhaled sharply. Then he nodded towards the tub. “Your bath is getting cold.”

It was, Philip could see. His skin prickled with the sudden, desperate need to get clean. 

He lurched forward. Deprivation and distress made him unsteady on his feet. Richter got up to steady him, being mindful to keep his hands where Philip could see them. Slowly they manoeuvred Philip’s poor abused body over the rim of the tub and into the lambent bathwater. 

It was an unexpected slice of Paradise. For a moment, lifted by the buoyant water, luxuriating in its cleanliness and warmth, Philip felt untethered from the claims of the world, liberated from the filth of his flesh. Angels who soared in God’s heaven above, who had never known hurt and moral hazard and the fetters of the earth, could surely not feel half as free as he felt now. 

From an indeterminate point above came an awkward throat-clearing. “Well then, Doctor, I’ll leave you to it.”

Philip surfaced abruptly. Water cascaded from his hair and plastered it to his face. He knew he must look like a drowned rat, which must be why Richter was staring.

“Not going to stick around to make sure I don’t drown?”

There was the familiar wry smile as Richter resettled on the edge of the tub. “Is there any danger of that? You have survived Cherche-Midi, you can survive anything.” 

“I do mean to survive,” Philip said grimly, and, in that moment, he discovered he did. Richter had been right: this hot bath was indeed doing him a world of good.

Of course there were no bath salts, but soap would do just as well. Philip groped for the slippery bar, which slid from his grasp onto the bathroom floor. Richter got up to retrieve it and to return it to him; as he did so, Philip could see the Kommandant’s pristine white sleeves, neatly folded up to his elbows as they were, had nevertheless soaked through to mid-bicep, turning the material translucent. 

True to his word, Richter did remain at Philip’s side as he washed himself. His presence was strangely comforting. Unburdening himself to Richter, showing Richter the secrets that he could not reveal to Olive, had been curiously freeing.

For the most part, the Kommandant stayed quietly seated, only moving to offer a washcloth when it looked as if Philip might have to stretch for it. But when Philip reached for the razor blade, Richter leaned forward and took it from his quivering fingers.

“Don’t worry, Colonel. After everything that’s happened, I don’t intend to slit my own throat.”

“You might not do it intentionally,” Richter pointed out. “Your hands aren’t yet steady enough for this. Let me.”

Philip took a deep breath, and leaned forward. He’d placed his life in Richter’s hands before, and the Kommandant had not failed him. 

With brisk, graceful movements, Richter brushed the soap into lather, and then spread the lather across Philip’s cheeks. Again, he kept his actions deliberate, kept his hands where Philip could see them. 

Then he took up the straight-razor. Moving slowly and unhurriedly, he drew the blade across Philip’s jawline in small, precise strokes, along the contours of his cheekbones, down his vulnerable throat. He held Philip’s chin between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, and between every stroke he wiped the blade clean on the inside of his own wrist. 

Philip knew the touch of enemy steel against his undefended flesh ought to be deeply unnerving. Somehow, it wasn’t. Richter’s thin fingers were gentle, and the movement of the blade across his skin felt almost like a caress. 

Finally, the Kommandant set aside the razor, wiped his hands, and sat back with a weary smile.

“There. Perfectly handsome, good as new.”

Philip surprised himself by flushing suddenly. “Do you think my wife might think so?” he enquired, snappishly.

Richter rose to his feet, and looked levelly at him. “Doctor, I wish you to return to your wife with all dignity. After all, I took you from her six months ago. Let me at least pretend that I am restoring you in the same condition you were in when you left, even though, to my shame, I know that you are not.”

Philip bent his head. Richter was right, of course. They both needed to pretend for Olive’s sake. If he let slip how truly broken he was, it might destroy her. She needed a show of strength, not this damned weakness. 

“You said you needed to tell me about Clare,” he said, at last. 

Richter nodded. “In the car, on the way back. There is much you have missed, and much you have to catch up upon. But first, I will see if the orderly has finished pressing your spare clothes.”

Philip sat in the cooling water, watching Richter unfold his shirtsleeves and refasten his field jacket, transforming once more into the unflappable, immaculately attired colonel of the Wehrmacht. And yet, this imperturbable Nazi officer was the same man who had shed tears over the condition of his enemy, who had touched that enemy with the respect and comfort that Philip had been starved of in the last one hundred and seventy-nine days of his incarceration.

Philip knew to expect, in the coming days, further swings of mood and morale. In peacetime, he might have prescribed a course of therapy, or a retreat from the stresses of daily life. But these were luxuries that he could not, in the circumstances, afford himself. There were too many people counting on him.

He had thought he would be alone in all of it. He wasn’t, now; one other person now knew the full story. Even though that person was an enemy whom Philip might not be able to, or permitted to, count on for help, it was somehow enough that someone else knew, and pitied, and was complicit.

That person now took the stinking pile up from the floor, opened the door, and handed off the bundle to the orderly outside. He returned with a pressed armful of clothes, including a shirt that had looked starched to within an inch of its life. He laid these neatly on the chair, and then took up a towel, which he extended to Philip.

“So, Doctor, are we ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Philip murmured, and let Richter help him rise from the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cherche-Midi details from Ambrose Sherwill’s no-holds-barred A Fair and Honest Book](https://books.google.com.sg/books/about/A_Fair_and_Honest_Book.html?id=6x9JZL4VdvkC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false).  
> [International humanitarian law circa WW2 failed to protect civilian populations during armed conflicts.](https://blogs.icrc.org/cross-files/the-icrc-during-world-war-ii/#_ftn2)  
> [ The Hague Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land did not specifically provide legal protections for civilian prisoners of convention countries](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/ART/195-200066?OpenDocument), though cf. Art.s 43 and 46.  
> Similarly, [the Geneva Convention 1929 only applied to prisoners of war of convention countries](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/305), [and not to civilians of convention countries](https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/war-and-law/protected-persons/prisoners-war/overview-detainees-protected-persons.htm) (rectified in the 1949 Convention).


	2. a hermitage of the mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip's returned. Olive has difficulties coping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Whumptober Day 11: Psych 101; Alt 10: Nightmares.
> 
> Content warnings for PTSD, very vague references to emotional infidelity.

Olive Martel had been a doctor’s wife for almost thirty years, a mother to his children for more than twenty-five. She was more than that, of course, much more - - the girl with childhood asthma and allergies to animal fur, the young woman who had lost her virginity to a stranger in a French railway carriage, assistant secretary of the Guernsey Ladies Tennis Club and Dot Tannenbaum’s bosom friend - - but this was by and large how she identified herself: wife to Philip, mother to Clive and Clare, housewife and stout defender of the Martel home front.

It had always been enough for her. She had known Philip for most of her life. He had been the first and only love of her life. He was the best man she knew; he had always taken care of her every need and those of the children, in the same way that he tried to take care of his patients and the inhabitants on their small island. No one’s marriage was perfect - - her husband could be very stubborn, and famously fussy about many things, and she knew she had her own shortcomings as a wife and a woman - - but she did think their marriage came close.

Philip took up so much space in her life, which was why his long incarceration had been quite so difficult. She had tried to keep her chin up, of course, but she feared she had taken it out on Clare. She had finally admitted to John Forbes that she had blamed Clare for the hare-brained scheme that had resulted in Philip being sentenced to six months in Cherche-Midi, and both of them narrowly escaping being shot for spying. She was afraid she’d failed her girl. At this rate she might as well have locked Clare in the cloister at Cordier Hill with her own hands.

For the last ten years, it had been her custom to write to Dot in North Carolina in the first week of every month. Funny thing how the distance between them in miles had drawn them closer together in spirit than they had ever been during the years Dorothy lived in Guernsey. She was the only person in the world to whom Olive dared reveal every facet of her life with total honesty, and she was the second person to whom Olive confessed her terrible guilt over what had happened to Clare.

She’d also confessed to Dot that, every morning of Philip’s absence, after breakfast, she would cross off the previous day on the calendar she kept above the stove. In doing so, she saved the day up, so she wouldn’t have to think of it ticking by, minute by minute, as she kept up with the patients and helped John in the surgery and tried her best with Clare before her girl had gone to Corbière. That way, the past twenty-four hours would whizz by at one stroke of her pen.

The nights were the worst. Lying in their too-wide bed, her night-time reading done and without the occupations of the day to distract her, she had been unable to ignore how wretchedly alone she was. 

Occasionally, she would find herself “behaving the wrong way”, as Vicar Williams called it, though it seemed the Church of England reserved its ire for unwed girls and not decent, married matrons - - at least, presumably, as long as they thought about their husbands while they touched themselves. Which Olive did, for the most part, loyally picturing Philip’s lovely hands, his mouth, his long, lean body. Sometimes, though, toward the end, she found her thoughts straying to John, or the stranger on the train, and on those times she would find her peak in a wash of guilty pleasure. 

This she also scandalously confessed to Dot in her monthly letters, knowing her dear friend would not begrudge Olive this harmless bit of relief.

 _Pish,_ Dot had written in reply, _it’s all in fun, isn’t it? Me, I wish I’d been deflowered by a dashing young Frenchman, not that Jim Ozanne behind your father’s potting shed. Also, I seem to recall John Forbes was quite the dish when he was younger. Hasn’t it been five years since poor Doris passed on?_

 _Four,_ Olive thought, treacherously, but it would have been indecorous to write back with the correct detail.

Finally, as spring returned to Guernsey, the longed-for event arrived. Philip returned to her, clutching the suitcase she had packed for him six months ago, the clothes themselves filthy and Olive’s careful darns in his socks and under-things all unravelled. 

She’d been ecstatic, of course; she’d cried a little, and he had held her, awkwardly. He didn’t very much resemble a conquering hero - - she could see at once that he had gotten so much thinner, his clean-shaven face was gaunt from a lack of nutrition, and there was a new distance in his eyes which hadn’t been there before. But he had never looked more beautiful to her.

She made him a brunch of poached eggs, and watched him eat it with his old gusto. 

“This is good,” he said, simply, smiling, and she could not have agreed more. 

It was time to mark the calendar, and she showed him how she had done it. He frowned. “Is that the date? I used to mark off the days on the window recess, where the guard couldn’t see it.”

“Surely you would know the number of days by when it was dark and when it was light?”

“Mm. I didn’t always know,” Philip said, turning away from her and resuming his seat at the table. The distance had returned to his eyes, as if they were fixed on something unspeakably awful that only he could see.

He forced a smile when he looked up and saw her distress.

“Now,” he said, visibly steeling himself, “tell me about Clare,” and it was Olive’s turn to be unable to meet his eyes.

*

Philip came home from the convent at Cordier Hill looking as if all the stuffing had been knocked out of him. Olive knew how he felt, at least by the way of feeling that they had failed Clare. 

Miraculously, though, he seemed to have achieved something she had not: forgiveness.

“I don’t blame Clare or Peter,” he told Helen Porteous, when Helen asked, tentatively. “I don’t regard it as deceit that they didn’t tell me. They were right not to. We were punished because the plan went wrong, not because they did wrong. They did what they thought was right. That’s what’s important, doing what we think is right.”

The brightness in his eyes was almost blinding; this time, Olive couldn’t look away from it. She thought her heart might break, both from her pride in him and her own shame.

He told Helen about the poetry he had recited to himself to comfort himself in Cherche-Midi. “Lovelace. _Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage_.” 

Olive knew the next line, though: _Angels alone that soar above/Enjoy such Liberty_ , though she could not for the life of her imagine what thinking about angels might have meant, for Lovelace or to her poor husband, facing goodness knows what deprivations and horrors behind those stone prison walls where no one else might follow.

Philip mused, “The nearest I could get was: if we do our best to do what we think is right, maybe we can fly there too.”

Olive found herself getting to her feet, blinded by her tears. Philip wrapped his arms around her waist, and she cradled him to her breast as if she was the one who now needed to protect him.

*

Everything had gone so well at the beginning. Philip had savoured every bite of the delicious dinner she’d made, and they toasted each other with the half bottle of claret Olive had managed to pick up during yesterday’s trip to the stores. 

They even drank some of the tea which Colonel Richter had brought her on his last visit. When she told Philip about the tea’s provenance, he let out a snort of laughter, and for a moment his smile was entirely bright and joyful, before it clouded over with something Olive couldn’t understand.

When they retired to bed, Olive was seized with a sudden shyness. They washed up for bed separately, as they always had; she donned her nightdress and belted her dressing gown over it as she had during those six months Philip had been away. But he was back, now, and his tall, newly restless presence, encased in clean, pressed flannel of pyjamas and dressing gown, was both strange and familiar at the same time. 

She told herself it wouldn’t be easy to damage almost thirty years of marriage, though doubtless the Nazis would have given it their best go.

They got into bed together, and for the first time in six months, there was the bulk of him weighing down on the other side of the mattress.

When she set aside her book and turned off the light, it was he who reached for her.

“We don’t have to,” she demurred, feeling herself blush in the darkness. “You must be so tired.”

“I’ve missed you, old girl,” he said, into her neck, and for a moment it was as if he had never been away. He untied the knot of her dressing gown and unwrapped her in the darkness; then he, too, undid his own flannel dressing gown and shrugged it to the floor.

The curtains were drawn as usual; the moon turned their floral-patterned fabric translucent, admitting just enough light for her to make out the lines of his beloved features.

“I’ve missed you, too,” she murmured, her heart very full, and lifted her face to him.

There was some awkwardness as he pressed a cautious, closed-mouthed kiss to her lips, more, as he pushed the silky stuff of her night-dress up until it bunched above her breasts. In similar vein he slid her drawers down, drew down his own pyjama bottoms, and took her into his arms. 

She tried to ignore the newness of his ribs against her, the almost-fragility of his poor starved body, in order to concentrate on giving him a proper welcome. She kissed his collarbone and breathed in his usual smell, relieved to find how she was already wet between her legs and ready for him.

He positioned himself carefully and thrust between her thighs, a movement she was intimately accustomed to from the last thirty years of her life. She had always known him to be dependable, gentle and steadfast under their covers and in the darkness, so much so that it took long moments before she realised he wasn’t as firmly armed as he usually was, but remained inert against her.

She reached for him, tentatively; ran her hands under his pyjama top to cup his bare posterior. It was probably only her imagination, but she fancied he flinched minutely from her touch, and she took her hands away.

He strove for some heartbeats longer, his breathing laboured. She held her own breath as she waited for the expected miracle of biology to occur at last.

Then: “Sorry, old thing. Not used to the wine after all this time, it must have gone to my head.”

“It’s all right,” she whispered, as he rolled off her and lay on his back, facing the ceiling. She told herself it _was_ all right. It was clearly too soon to expect them to be together as they were before; he’d spent months in solitary confinement, locked in a tiny cell, never touching a soul or being touched. It was bound to take some time to get used to being someone’s husband and fulfilling their marital duties once more. Being Olive’s again, and Guernsey’s, instead of belonging to whatever was inside that terrible Cherche-Midi.

She slid her arm around his neck, under the collar of his pyjamas, and this time he definitely did flinch.

*

Things didn’t go much better the next day, or the next. She told herself she wouldn’t fret; she would be strong for him, would protect and comfort him, now that he needed her more than ever. Afterwards, she would hold him and rock him to sleep, as she had rocked Clive and Clare when they were little and colicky and wakeful.

Eventually he would drift off for her, as their babies had, and in the beginning, his dreams were relatively peaceful.

It was several days after his return when the nightmares started. Philip had never been a peaceful sleeper at the best of times, and Olive was accustomed to Philip’s fitful tossing and turning, but he had never woken her like this before Cherche-Midi. 

The first time was on Saturday, the week of his return. Olive was awakened from a deep sleep to the sound of someone screaming. 

“No! _No_ \- - get away from me - -“

It was Philip, sounding more terrified than Olive had ever heard him. She sat bolt upright in bed. Beside her in the darkness, her husband was a shadowy, indistinct, thrashing shape, almost as frightening as the noises he was making. She reached over to shake him, her heart in her mouth.

“Philip! Philip, wake up!”

He resisted for a moment, struggling under her hand, then consciousness took him and he muttered, blearily, “…What?”

“You were having a bad dream.” She stroked his arm warily, as one might touch a spooked horse that could bolt at any time.

“I was? Good God. What time is it? No - -” stopping her, as Olive reached for the bedside light; “- - no, leave it. Let’s just try to get back to sleep.” 

Olive settled back down and put her head carefully against Philip’s shoulder. Through the thick material of his pyjamas, she could hear his rapid-fire heartbeat.

“What was it?” she asked, softly. “What did you dream about?”

There was a small hesitation, a catch in Philip’s voice. “I can’t remember,” he murmured, and she knew he was trying to spare her from the truth.

*

As the days became weeks, and the nightmares continued, Olive knew she had to face the fear that she might have failed Philip as well as Clare.

When the first week of May arrived, she took up her pen as usual to write to Dot Tannenbaum. For the first time she didn’t know what to write. 

The truth of the matter, of course, was this. _Philip’s come back from prison, and he’s changed so much sometimes I hardly recognise him. He has thrown himself into his work, but there are no patients to see in the evenings or on weekends. He doesn’t have the Controlling Committee work to occupy him as he used to. Clare still refuses to see him. Sometimes he’s in my way, unravelling my wool and poking through the boxes for Helen's children's charity and criticising my efforts to make do «in» under the new privations. All too often he finds he has nothing to say to me. When we’re sitting together at the kitchen table, he nods off, or stares off into space._

But writing those things down, even to Dot, who knew everything about her, seemed like a terrible betrayal as well as a declaration of failure.

 _Also, he’s not touched me since his return._ That, too, sounded like betrayal, like failure.

Finally, after Philip had returned from yet another fruitless attempt at seeing Clare, his face lined and grey as if he had aged ten years since he left for «Cherche- Midi», she put her hat and coat on and cycled over to John Forbes’ clinic in Grand Bouet. 

She arrived there just as John’s receptionist was sending off his last patient. Tess was only too pleased to let her know the doctor was free to see her, and made the both of them a pot of blackberry tea, which John poured for her himself.

“I keep meaning to come around again to see how Philip is getting on. Did he get my note about Captain Foster-Smythe’s housekeeper, and the bout of croup the Ridge boy had?”

“Yes. Yes, he did,” Olive said. It was good to be out of the house, and talking to John about the patients whom he’d cared for in Philip’s absence. “Little Erich is much better, and I don’t think Lily has needed to come to us since you saw to her.”

“That’s a relief. Do you know, I rather miss driving over to your neck of the woods in the mornings and seeing to Philip’s clinic as well as my own? It feels as if there’s somewhat of a gap in my day.” John chuckled. “Still, I’m sure his patients are glad to see him safely back with us. Do you know, I believe we all rather look on him as a hero, after all he’s been through?”

Olive pressed a hand to her mouth to suppress the small sound, but it was too late. John had seen the distress in her eyes.

“My dear Olive, what in the world is the matter?” 

Olive found herself perilously close to tears under his sympathetic gaze. This man had held her hand and let her unburden herself about what Clare had done, and what she herself had done to Clare; it was very difficult to keep secrets from him.

She lifted her chin, steeling herself, and told him a version of the truth.

“It’s Philip. Prison’s changed him. Stares off into space sometimes, has the most ghastly nightmares, he won’t say about what. If I didn’t know better, I would say I’m frightened he might be depressed, like Clare was before she went to the sea.” 

John frowned. “Has he said what’s wrong?”

“He doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s as if…“ Olive faltered momentarily. “As if it was all so horrid he needs to protect me from it, or else I’d go mad too. It’s as if Philip’s come back from war again, having seen unspeakable things that he can’t talk about to anyone else.” 

“It’s obviously a stress reaction of some kind. In the Great War, the medical journals called it ‘shell-shock’, but the term’s fallen out of fashion.” John shook his head. “The poor devil, he must have had hell’s own time.”

He must have seen the look on Olive’s face, because he reached over to take her hand. 

“Don’t worry. Look, I’m not a trained psychiatrist, but I can’t believe Philip actually needs psychotherapy. It hasn’t been three weeks, right? Give it some time, you know how strong he is. Chances are all that’s needed is rest and food and quiet for him to be perfectly all right again.”

Olive swallowed around the lump in her throat. She knew she was clinging to John’s hand as if it were a lifeline; with some effort, she made herself let go. “I want to believe that’s true. It’s awful feeling so helpless.”

“He needs to eat better. When I last saw him, the prison food had clearly left him with malnutrition.” John took up his pen. “Perhaps I can write a note to the Feldkommandant. Out of respect for Philip’s former position on the Controlling Committee, maybe they could see a way to increase his rations…?”

The violence of her own reaction to this took her by surprise. 

“No! No more favours! Not from these Germans - - they give you something in one hand, and then with the other hand they take something else away. The Kommandant, he may have spared Philip’s life, but what he got back in return…” 

She had startled John, too. He put down the pen and patted her wrist a little helplessly. “Maybe, maybe. You can never tell where collaboration really starts or ends, can you? But this wouldn’t be collaborating, Olive. Philip could really use the help.” 

“When does anything ever _seem_ like collaboration?” Olive said, grimly. “Please do come to see us, John, but I think you’ll find Philip has had quite enough help from the Germans for one lifetime.” 

*

That was what Philip had told her, anyway, and she had believed him, until the night she heard him shouting a familiar name in his sleep.

Philip’s night terrors had all been fairly anonymous. He would cry out as if people were hurting him and holding him down; he would shout at them to keep away from him, and beg them to let him go. One time she thought she heard him say Clive’s name and ask their boy to forgive him - - which made very little sense, of course, Philip had done all he could for Clive, it wasn’t his fault that Clive’s regiment had been sent to Guernsey to be cut down on that ill-planned raid, nor had he anything to fear, really, now Clive was safely in a POW camp on the mainland. But apart from that time, it sounded as if the assailants who haunted Philip’s dreams were shadowy and faceless.  
.  
Which made it all the more terrifying when she finally heard Philip give them a name.

“Stop - - Colonel Richter - - you can’t - - please - -“

She sat up, her heart pounding, quite unable to believe her ears. Was Philip calling out to the Kommandant in his dreams? Or was he imagining it was Richter who was attacking him in the ways he had experienced at Cherche-Midi? She had no idea; nor did she at all want to know.

Philip flailed his arm and then wrenched his body towards her, as if trying to throw a weight off his shoulders. She grasped his arm and put her face close to his, trying to wake him as gently as she could. “Philip… dearest…”

In the darkness she saw the gleam of his teeth as his lips pulled back in a snarl. She heard him say, in a cold, distinct voice, “ _Richter will have your head for this._ ” 

She was at a complete loss as to what this meant, and when Philip finally woke, trembling and out of breath, he also claimed to have no idea.

*

The next day after lunch, Philip headed out on his weekly rounds. It seemed Captain Foster-Smythe had come down with a bad stomach, and while he was in Saint Saviour seeing to old Mr Brest he might as well also call on Helen Porteous. He promised he would ring if he was going to be back late for dinner.

After he had gone, Olive wiped the counters and swept the floors and put the cauliflower casserole in the oven, and then she sat at the kitchen table and put her head down for forty winks. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Philip’s return; she didn’t think she’d be begrudged a very short nap.

She woke with a start to hear a rapping on the door. 

When she saw the tall figure in Wehrmacht grey in her doorway, she wondered for a moment if she was, like her husband, trapped in some never-ending, horrific dream. 

“Mrs Martel, am I disturbing you? Perhaps I should come back at a more propitious time.”

Olive rubbed her eyes and straightened her apron. “No, no. Please come in, Colonel.” 

“Thank you,” Richter said, and crossed the kitchen to stand before her, hat held quite correctly under his arm. 

She stared up into that bearded, smiling face, and realised she had come to think of Richter as a familiar and almost benign figure, a civilised, humane man who had saved her husband’s and her daughter’s lives. But the Kommandant with his medals and symbols of office and gun-belt was first and foremost an image of terror; his intimidating uniform designed to strike fear into the hearts of those who set eyes on it. Maybe this was why Philip’s subconscious had seized on this military regalia, and the Colonel who wore it, as the source of his nightmares. 

“Is the Doctor home?”

“He’s out on his rounds, I don’t expect him for another hour or so. Did you come here to see him?” Olive asked, which was a ridiculous question: what other reason could there have been for Richter’s visit?

Richter inclined his sleek head. “Indeed I did. Do you think I could wait for him, perhaps?”

“Wait? For an hour or more? He’s out on _rounds_. He might well be late!” Richter had once made time in his day to bring her a collaborator’s gift of tea, but surely the Kommandant had better things to do with his afternoon than wait around at Olive’s kitchen table for her husband to return?

She saw him wince at the words she left unspoken, and she added, drily, “You must want to discuss something very important with him.”

“I do,” Richter said. He paused, but when she glared at him, he continued, “I wished to invite him to re-join the Controlling Committee. It needs a medical member, you see, and he is much more qualified for the role than Captain Foster-Smythe is. He has been sorely missed.”

There was a faint ringing in her ears, though she remained very calm. “Missed by his committee members, or by you?”

He smiled thinly. “Let us say persuading him to return would be a joint effort.”

“I agree that he’s qualified, and moreover he was good in the role. But I don’t think Philip will agree.” The ringing was getting worse, and she could hear her voice wavering. “And, even if he did, I’m not sure I’d let him.” 

Richter drew himself to his full height. “Might I ask why?” he enquired, scrupulously polite, but with steel underneath.

“Hasn’t he given enough? Hasn’t he been hurt enough?” She realised she had risen to her feet, and that she was shouting as Philip all too often shouted. “He said your name. Last night.”

“I don’t understand,” Richter said. His face was a mask.

She had no idea what her own face looked like, nor did she care. “He has been having nightmares since his return. He wakes me with his screaming. Last night he said your name. As if you were the one - -” She had to break off. She didn’t know what she was about to say, only that she would not be able to retrieve it afterwards once she said it.

Her knees quivered, and she had to sit back down on her chair. She was trembling all over, and other words tumbled out of her like water from a dam. 

“This is your fault. Yours, personally, Colonel Richter. You sent him away, left him shut up in that awful place for six months, where all kinds of things happened to him, things he won’t tell me about, and though his body is here, his mind is back there, in prison, trapped with nowhere to go.” 

She took a long, shaky breath. “You must know what happens in places like Cherche-Midi. I don’t know, and he won’t tell me. But you must know what was done to him. And you still serve _them_.”

Richter’s mask had vanished. He looked stunned, almost as if she had slapped him, his eyes shining with dismay. Dimly, as if from a long way off, she knew she was being unfair to him, that she was lashing out to hurt the only person she could, under the circumstances. She knew it was a stretch to assume this careful, stoic soldier could be hurt by her words, but somehow she did not doubt that he would be.

Richter stepped forward so he could stand directly in front of her. He held himself at attention, very stiffly, as if he was making a formal apology on behalf of his country.

“Mrs Martel. I am deeply sorry. You may be right to say I bear some responsibility.” He took a long, unsteady breath. “Let me promise you that I will do what I can to make things right.”

“Haven’t you done enough?” She put her head in her hands. She wanted the conversation to be at an end. “Please, would you just leave my house? I will tell Dr Martel you stopped by.”

He nodded his head to her, and clicked his heels together in the formal German salute that she found unbearable, particularly today. Then he took a step back, and turned around, and it did rather look as if he was fleeing from her as he left her kitchen post-haste.

*

Which was of course how she told it to Philip when he returned, and the story of Richter turning tail and fleeing from her tongue-lashing roused an appreciative belly-laugh from Philip.

“I wish I’d’ve been here to see it! Poor old Richter, sometimes I think he has the worst job on the island.”

Olive didn’t agree. The Colonel did have a very challenging job, but she was certain she had it worse than he did.

She waited until after dinner to ask Philip Richter’s question. “Do you think you might be interested in re-joining the Committee? From the way Colonel Richter tells it, it sounds as if John Ambrose and the others will also support you.”

“What, and replace Foster-Smythe? I hardly think so.” Philip smiled sadly at her. “I’m surprised Richter even thought I’d consider it.”

She shrugged. “He did, though. He came all this way to ask you himself. He even threatened to wait until you came back.”

“Hmm. I do think Richter’s up to something.” Philip frowned. “When I last saw him, he … he mentioned wanting to write a letter to Berlin. He didn’t say anything about the committee.”

Olive couldn’t remember if Philip had mentioned seeing Richter after his release, and didn’t want to ask now, not when she could see his face had taken on that distant look that told her he’d travelled where she couldn’t follow. This time, though, there was something different in it that she didn’t know how to interpret.

*

That night, she heard him call Richter’s name again. She put her hand on his arm, and once again whispered into his ear that he was dreaming.

This time, instead of pulling away, Philip rolled closer towards her. The whites of his eyes gleamed intently in the darkness.

“Dreaming?” he murmured. “Yes, maybe this is a dream. And if it is…”

He drew her to him. This time, for the first time, she could feel him vibrant and alive against her. She wasn’t ready, hadn’t thought about sex in days if not weeks, but now that he had awakened at last, she hurried to meet him. And, thank goodness, this time it was as simple and forthright as it had been in the past. He held her and plunged urgently between her thighs, and eventually he spilled himself into her with a strangled noise that was in between a sob and a sigh.

She embraced him afterwards, dazed and more than a little grateful. Maybe this was the turning point for them at last. Maybe, as John had reassured her, all they needed was rest and quiet for everything to go back to the way it was. 

He turned his face into her hair. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, in lieu of words of love or relief, even though she had no idea what he could be sorry for.

It was then that she realised his voice was thick with tears he couldn’t bring himself to shed in front of her, and she knew things would never be the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Olive's backstory, and her friendship with Mrs Dorothy "Dot" Tannenbaum of North Carolina (formerly of Guernsey), is taken from [the Enemy at the Door tie-in novel.](https://old-brit-tv.fandom.com/wiki/Olive_Martel)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by K. Full responsibility remains mine.
> 
> The Kommanduntur is located in a school in show canon; [this famous Ambrose Sherwill alma mater was in fact commandeered for the German forces’ administrative use](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Elizabeth_College,_Guernsey).  
> [ Resources and Chronology of Persecution in Occupied France, 1940-44](https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/chronology-repression-and-persecution-occupied-france-1940-44.html#title5)


End file.
